Daily Archives: December 29, 2011

Click hereor on the cover below for the recently released (Nov 2011) Climate Change Handbook for water planning, published by EPA Region 9 and the California Dept of Water Resources. Like other government documents, which are produced with a political motivation, this document is no different in that it references the IPCC as the basis of the science behind its purpose and holds up as icons the work of utilities who have taken action that fits the global warming premise. (I don’t at all fault a system board who chooses to take action, but recognize that the global warming-CO2 premise is false.)

The consultant who produced the report, CDM, is a very large Boston, Massachusetts-based consulting firm….certainly not an unbiased observer here….but they do a great job in report production….the document looks terrific…

Let’s take a look at just a few aspects of this document…..below….

In the early 1990’s, integrated water resources management planning (IWRMP) was getting off the ground in AWWA (where I was a staff member)….I recall working with Bill Miller (former long-time Manager of Denver Water) and a group of utility managers, many from California, on a wetlands mitigation policy and on a statement to define IWRMP…..now California utilities are well beyond those early days, but a few things have not changed:

It is much easier to draw a nice planning chart as to how things should work to integrate something into something else…..but very much another thing to do it. Especially in this case becasue the work of the IPCC and climate modelers has been so discredited (even people in California will eventually realize this)…that it draws the entire exercise into question….

Also, a policy or actions based on a false premise or bad science will fail, even if they seem to be good things to do now….this is why the underlying climate science must have some minimal level of integrity….which seems to have disappeared in the wind somewhere…

The handbook provides a high-level policy discussion of integrating climate change (with no definition) into IWRMP…..a sales presentation, if you will….

If one studies this chart, it would make sense, especially to a water policy and planning wonk. However, to most other people involved in utility planning, it would make as much sense if it were turned up-side-down. Like I said, the drawings are the easy part….getting it to work and implementing it fairly is another question altogether….

The document has some interesting case studies of what some water systems have done. I don’t object or fault them for their activities…but I would stop short of calling these utilities the “leaders”. Afterall, what is at risk?…the well-being of their customers (the humans, remember them?). The best available science does not justify actions to mitigate global warming by controlling CO2…..but water boards can certainly choose to spend their rate payers money as they would like….the rate payers may start objecting, however….

Like many similar government reports I have seen, sprinkled here and there throughout are false statements that continue to be perpetuated by global warmists. Let’s take a look at a typical page:

Fortunately, the report is not written in an alarming tone. The figure above is very typical of those I have seen showing projections of future temperature using climate models (6 in the graph above). Planners usually argue this way…..let’s run 6 or 10 or 20 models and then average the result together….What they ignore is that the average of 6 wrong model projections is still wrong, and provides no idea of what the true value would be….because one does not have complete knowledge of the future, the models do not adequately represent the physical phenomena, and it is incorrect to assume that the future will be like the past. Hence, the temperature projections for Pasadena are fictional…they can believe them if they so choose…(They could also believe that Governor Brown is going to balance the California budget, which would be wishfull thinking as well.) The projections of California temperature changes are unreliable….

I am reminded of the story of the stock picker who chose stocks to buy using a dart thrown at the stock listings in the Wall Street Journal. He did as well as a trained stock picker overall……we could project temperature just as well with a lap top (or maybe even by just closing our eyes)….

At the bottom of the page above, the statement is made that extreme weather will increase as a result of warming. The science I’ve seen does not support this statement…..

Now I would like to see EPA Region 9 fund a study to examine the offsetting risks created by the utilities as a result of the actions taken described in this report and the opportunities lost due to diverting funds into these projects compared with other pressing projects…..

Posted onDecember 29, 2011|Comments Off on California Water Commission draft report: Benefits of Water Storage Projects

The draft report “Description and Screening of Potential Tools and Methods to Quantify Public Benefits of Water Storage Projects” examines five benefit areas: ecosystem improvement, water quality, flood control, emergency response and recreation.

California Water Commission will discuss the report at its meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 18, in Sacramento. Public comments are being accepted.

Posted onDecember 29, 2011|Comments Off on Loss of distribution system pressure = boil water notice

As a precautionary measure, loss of pressure in the water distribution system typically results in a boil water notice…..because of the possibility of contamination due to backflow…..Click here or see below for recent example.

Comments Off on Loss of distribution system pressure = boil water notice

Abstract: Arsenic is a metalloid, that is, considered to be a human carcinogen. Millions of individuals worldwide are chronically exposed through drinking water, with consequences ranging from acute toxicities to development of malignancies, such as skin and lung cancer. Despite well-known arsenic-related health effects, the molecular mechanisms involved are not fully understood; however, the arsenic biotransformation process, which includes methylation changes, is thought to play a key role. This paper explores the relationship of arsenic exposure with cancer development and summarizes current knowledge of the potential mechanisms that may contribute to the neoplastic processes observed in arsenic exposed human populations.